Nintendo and Wayport have announced a partnership to bring the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection into almost 6,000 McDonalds nationwide free of charge for the November 14th launch of the company's Nintendo DS Internet gaming service.
The deal marks the first we've heard of Nintendo's previous plans for establishing free hot spots.

If there ever was a fast food chain that made sense for Nintendo to partner up with, McDonalds is it. "Beginning with free access at participating McDonald's, we have removed one of the major barriers that have kept people from going online to play games," says Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's exec. VP of sales and marketing.

Setup will be simple. Players walk into their local restaurant, turn on a Nintendo DS and the machine will automatically pick up the Wi-Fi connection and take care of the setup. All gamers have to do is start playing. If you're not sure if you have a local McDonalds with Wi-Fi, a list will be available from Nintendo soon.

One side effect of this deal, however, is essentially offering free wireless multiplayer for PSP owners, as well. It would be surprising to learn if the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection offered could actually differentiate between machines, but then again, Nintendo's probably more excited about all the marketing support they'll receive here, too.

But remember, you don't have to go into a McDonald's to get online; any Wi-Fi hotspot will do, with "minimal setup" according to Nintendo. And of course if you have broadband at home with no wireless, you can buy the USB wireless adapter to turn any computer on the internet into an access point. Several cities, including San Francisco, home of 1UP, are also talking about city-wide free or low-cost Wi-Fi, which would mean you could play your DS anywhere in the metropolitan area.

Henhead

20-10-05, 00:10

Each Hot Spot (as I understand) has its own homepage which can be conected to for free, you then need to subscribe, and can only go further with an active account and password